Robert Lanfear
My current research focusses on understanding the evolutionary forces that shape genomes and ecosystems. Most evolutionary processes (such as mutation, selection, substitution and gene duplication) leave traces in the genomes of living organisms. Much of my work has focussed on developing methods to detect these traces, and then using them to test evolutionary hypotheses.During my PhD at the University of Sussex (UK) I spent most of my time at the lab bench as a developmental biologist, studying the evolution of segmentation in the animal phyla. I am currently a postdoc in Lindell Bromham’s lab at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Current Projects
1. Phylogenetic approaches to macroecology
Phylogenies often contain historical signals about the processes of speciation, extinction and invasion. I am working with Lindell Bromham on developing new methods to detect these processes using community-level phylogenies.
2. The evolution of mitochondrial genomes
Mitochondrial DNA is still the marker of choice for many applications in biological sciences, but surprisingly little is understood about the evolutionary forces which have shaped this genome. In most animals, the mitochondrial genome encodes 13 proteins which have vital roles in the process of respiration. However, it has recently been suggested that these proteins also serve to protect mitochondrial DNA from damage. In collaboration with John Welch (Montpellier) I am working on testing these hypotheses, and more generally to understand how mutation, selection, and life-history have shaped mitochondrial genomes in animals.
3. Understanding why rates of molecular evolution vary
It has been known for some time that the rates of genomic change differ significantly among different taxa. There are a huge number of hypotheses as to why this might be the case, but testing these hypotheses can be tricky. Because of that, I have been working to develop new statistical tests which will allow us to assess differences in rates of molecular evolution. Further to that, and in collaboration with many other researchers, I am using large DNA datasets from across the animal kingdom (and a few plants too) to try and understand how geography, life-history, and speciation interact to affect rates of molecular evolution. I am particularly interested in understanding the mechanistic processes that cause mutations in DNA sequences, and how these processes vary between taxa and lead to variation in rates of molecular evolution.
For a full list of publications, scripts, and data files, please see my homepage at: